b A weak substantial relational approach to autonomy 176

Meyers develops a relational approach to autonomy as acting according to one’s sense of personal identity. On Meyers’ approach ‘[a]utonomous people are in control of their own lives inasmuch as they do what they really want to do’.478 This approach understands autonomy as a competence that is developed and exercised relationally. On Meyers’ approach, autonomy is understood as a set of complex competences or reflective skills that emerge developmentally, that can be exercised to a greater or lesser extent in different contexts and that are sustained and exercised in social situations.479 _{This is an approach which aims to explain} both the enabling and impairing aspects of socialisation. Meyers’ approach also

477 _{Mackenzie, “On Bodily Autonomy,” 420.} 478 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 26.}

479 _{Meyers shifts the discussion of socialisation, drawing on Feinberg. She writes: ‘Feinberg’s}

view … reorients speculation about personal autonomy. Instead of asking how the prefabricated adult can gain control over a manufacturing process run wild, Feinberg’s insight encourages us to ask how the socialization process can be adjusted to promote the harmonious development of the individual.’ Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 41.

gives an account of the skills and competences necessary for autonomy and what kinds of socialisation are necessary to promote these skills and capacities (and so providing, in addition to the theoretical resources, a direction for therapeutic repair). On Meyers’ approach the function of competences is integration of the self and authentic selfhood emerges through the exercise of autonomy

competence.

Meyers proposes a relational procedural model to assess whether a desire or action is autonomous - autonomous desires are those that are developed through the exercise of autonomy competence. Meyers contrasts her relational procedural approach in terms of the exercise of autonomy competence with other procedural approaches, such as Frankfurt’s, which she argues regard social relations as causal conditions that promote self-sufficiency rather than as intrinsic to autonomy. Meyers targets Frankfurt’s procedural approach to autonomy, outlined in the previous section (5.1.a), for construing autonomy as a form of free will. 480 _Meyers argues that this approach treats autonomy as subsidiary to free will, meaning that autonomy exists where an ontologically free agent can be found. This

understanding treats a free agent as an ‘authentic’ self who is independent of, or ‘untainted’ by socialisation. In contrast, Meyers argues that we should understand social relations as intrinsic to autonomy; we need a more sophisticated account of autonomy and one that can account for the social and not just devise ways to transcend it. On Meyers’ approach, socialisation is not inimical to autonomy; rather, developing autonomy competences depends on socialisation.

Meyers outlines three specific skills that are essential to autonomous agency – skills in self-discovery (understanding oneself), self-definition (defining one’s values and commitments), and self-direction (directing one’s life). Meyers argues that there are three components to autonomy: reflection, revision, and action (that is, having opportunities to choose, control over the context, and the exercise of competence). As Meyers writes:

Autonomous people must be able to pose and answer the question “What do I really want, need, care about, believe, value etcetera?; they must be able to act on the answer; and they must be able to correct themselves when they get the answer wrong. To perform these tasks, people must have autonomy competency—the repertory of coordinated skills that makes self-discovery, self-definition, and self- direction possible.’481

And,

The skills that enable people to make this inquiry and to carry out their decisions constitute what I shall call autonomy competence.482

480 _{Meyers also links this criticism to other procedural accounts as a shared methodological}

fault. Meyers includes procedural approaches which examine authenticity in terms of examining the socialization process (in Emmet, Young and Richards), in coherence (Frankfurt and Benn) and through identification (Frankfurt, Dworkin, Young and Watson).

481 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 76.} 482 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 53.}

As such this is a much more nuanced account of autonomy competence than that in terms of legal competence. Meyers’ conception of autonomy competences includes volitional, emotional, imaginative and evaluative skills of critical

reflection. As Mackenzie and Walker note:

Autonomy competence encompasses not just the minimal requirements of legal competence — understanding, minimal rationality, and the capacity to

communicate one’s decision — but an array of complex competences. These include volitional skills, such as self-control and motivational decisiveness; emotional skills, such as the capacity to interpret and regulate one’s own

emotions; imaginative skills, required for understanding the implications of one’s decisions and envisaging alternative possible courses of action; and capacities to reflect critically on social norms and values.483

Because autonomy competences are a set of skills that can be acquired

developmentally, the exercise of autonomy can be a matter of degree and varies in different domains. Meyers distinguishes between episodic and programmatic autonomy, in terms of one’s life plans. A life plan consolidates and unifies one’s decisions.

People direct their lives episodically and programmatically. Autonomous episodic self-direction occurs when a person confronts a situation, asks what he or she can do with respect to it—the options may include withdrawing from it as well as participating in it in various ways—and what he or she really wants to do with respect to it, and then executes the decision this deliberation yields. Autonomous programmatic self-direction has a broad sweep. Instead of posing the question “What do I really want to do now?” this form of autonomy addresses a question like “How do I really want to live my life?” To answer this latter question, people must consider what qualities they want to have, what sorts of interpersonal relations they want to be involved in, what talents they want to develop, what interests they want to pursue, what goals they want to achieve, and so forth. Their decision about these matters together with their ideas about how to effect these results add up to a life plan.484

Programatically autonomous people have autonomous life plans. Life plans facilitate the harmony that autonomy requires. People’s self-concepts stand in a reciprocal relation to their life plans. On Meyers’ approach life plans set the ‘parameters of autonomous spontaneous conduct’.

A life plan is a comprehensive projection of intent a conception of what a person wants to do in life. Any life plan must include at least one activity that the agent consciously wants to pursue or a value that the agent consciously wants to advance or an emotional bond that the agent consciously wants to sustain, But most people want to enjoy a variety of goods, and their life plans must distribute their energy and time so as to satisfy these diverse desires.485

483 _{Mackenzie and Walker, “Neurotechnologies, Personal Identity, and the Ethics of}

Authenticity,” 388. For a discussion of these self-reflective skills, see Catriona Mackenzie, “Critical Reflection, Self-knowledge, and the Emotions,” Philosophical Explorations 5 (2002).

484 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 48.} 485 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 49.}

Two important points about life plans can be made. Firstly, these plans are not optional, but rather, are necessary for the exercise of autonomy. As Meyers notes: ‘From the standpoint of autonomy, however, the issue is not whether most people have life plans but whether anyone can be autonomous without one’.486 _{This is} similar to the point made earlier in the thesis that narrative is a necessary

organising principle (see 3.2). Secondly, whilst necessary, life plans can’t provide for all life’s contingencies; ‘there is a reciprocal and dynamic relation between the true self and life plans’.487

In doing what they really want to do, autonomous people control their own lives. Of course, no one can control all of the circumstances that might help or hinder one’s projects. Strictly speaking, then, no one can dictate his or her own fate. But, inasmuch as autonomous people are able to match their conduct to their selves within the constraints of the opportunities that circumstances afford and are sometimes able to enlarge their opportunities to suit their selves, they exercise as much power over their destinies as anyone can.488

Mackenzie and Stoljar point out that on Meyers’ approach self-realisation involves ‘the capacity to develop those potentialities that are central to the agent’s authentic self-conception, in the context of the agent’s life plan’.489 _{It does not} require her to develop all her potentialities. Moreover, it requires the recognition that autonomy is relative to opportunities and circumstances, and as such,

autonomy is a relative assessment and not made externally, as if one were free from all constraints.

On Meyers’ approach, autonomy competences play a role in securing personal integration. Meyers explains that the overarching function of autonomy

competency is self-governance understood as the use of autonomy competency to secure an integrated personality. This is autonomy competence in the exercise of a life plan, which in turn gives one control and spontaneity in one’s life.

[A]utonomy competency has an overarching function that determines what skills people must have at their disposal and how they must use these skills in order to exercise the competency successfully … . That function, of course, is self- governance—controlling one’s life by ascertaining what one really wants to do and by acting accordingly. … [T]he overarching function of the competency of autonomy is to secure an integrated personality. To have control over their lives and to be able to act spontaneously without compromising this control, people must have integrated personalities.490

Given the function of autonomy competence is integration of selfhood, as the quote above makes clear, authentic selfhood, on Meyer’s account, emerges through the exercise of autonomy competence. Meyers writes:

486 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 51.} 487 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 53.} 488 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 46.}

489 _{Mackenzie and Stoljar, “Autonomy Refigured,” 17.} 490 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 59-60.}

[P]ersonal autonomy is a way of living in harmony with one’s true self.

Conceived as the exercise of competency comprising diverse self-reading and self- actualizing skills.491

This understanding of authenticity contrasts with those procedural approaches discussed in section 5.1.a which test for authenticity conditions, for example, using identification, endorsement and non-alienation. Meyers argues we should reorient autonomy away from a matter of desires competing to be reasons for action, to the idea of the integration of the self. We should address the question of how a person can live in harmony with his or her authentic self, ‘considering the characteristic unity and vigor of the autonomous life’.492 _{By understanding autonomous actions} and desires as those that are developed through the exercise of autonomy

competence – namely self-discovery, self-definition and self-direction – Meyers’ approach has the further virtue that it can account for both dimensions of autonomy as set out in section 5.1.a, that is as both a capacity and as involving authenticity. This further contrasts with a number of the procedural approaches set out in 5.1.a, which whilst they recognise capacity as important for the exercise of autonomy, tend to focus solely on authenticity dimensions. Further, on Meyers’ approach alienation or lack of endorsement does not undermine autonomy

competence. One might fully exercise the skills comprising autonomy competence yet still experience a certain amount of alienation.

On Meyers’ approach, because autonomy competences are conceived relationally, and developmentally, their development and exercise can also be frustrated or impaired by others. For example, the social context may impair an agent’s capacities to achieve autonomy by encouraging the development of some skills at the expense of others. For example, Western patriarchy tends to

encourage women and girls to develop skills in self-discovery, but less so skills in self-direction and self-definition. This is because self-discovery is seen as more amenable to emotional abilities. Autonomous agency is not just the

expression/realisation of our identity; rather exercising autonomy involves a set of skills, which necessarily involve negotiation with others. Clearly, on this account, self-determination is not solely up to the individual.493

On this approach, whether a person is autonomous, or not, depends on whether the person possesses and successfully uses the skills comprised by the competency of autonomy. As Meyers writes:

The difference between autonomous people and nonautonomous ones depends on the capabilities people have at their disposal and the way in which people go about fashioning their lives. Autonomous people … possess and exercise sills that maintain a fluid interaction between their traits, their feelings, their beliefs, their

491 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 20.} 492 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 40.}

493 _{Jackie Leach Scully, Disability Bioethics: Moral Bodies, Moral Difference (Lanham, Maryland:}

values, their extended plans, their current possibilities for realizing these plans, and their conduct.494

Whilst Meyers recognises that external factors can impede the development of autonomy competences, hers is a casually relational approach; whether an agent develops autonomy competence is a matter of social conditions (for example level and kind of education or the nature of the environment, for example growing up as a girl in a patriarchal society as referred to above). On Meyers’ approach once autonomy competences are developed, it is up to the individual. In recognition of the arguments put throughout this thesis I argue that social relations must be understood as constitutive of autonomy, and not just as causally relevant. The causal approach is inadequate for theorising primary intersubjective embodiment. It is not just that others can thwart the development or exercise of our autonomy competency, rather we need recognition of the social shaping of our ideas; that is, that social understandings can be internalised and that autonomy requires that a person values her own judgement and capacity to act in accordance with what she values.

Recall, substantive approaches to autonomy argue that a procedural approach may yet include people that we might hesitate to call autonomous, such as those in oppressive environments. Mackenzie and Stoljar argue that despite Meyers’ aims, by failing to rule on the content, her procedural approach might yet still accord autonomy to nonautonomous people. As Mackenzie and Stoljar explain, the development of autonomy may be impaired in hostile environments and by

practices of domination marginalization and social oppression.495 _{Furthermore, not} being recognised as an autonomous agent can also impair autonomy by restricting the range of identity-constituting narratives available to an individual.496 _Further, as Mackenzie and others argue, these oppressive stereotypes can be internalised, which further impair autonomy by undermining a sense of oneself as an

autonomous agent. As Mackenzie writes:

Relational autonomy theorists claim that the internalization of oppressive social stereotypes, and social relations of misrecognition that deny members of oppressed social groups the status of being autonomous agents, can further impair autonomy by undermining a person’s sense of his or her self as an autonomous agent. One way this can occur is by corroding self-evaluative attitudes of self-respect (regarding oneself as the moral equal of others, self-trust (the capacity to trust one’s convictions,

494 _{Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice, 55.}

495 _{For examples of these claims, see the essays in Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar, eds.} Relational Autonomy - Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

496 _{As set out in the accounts by Nelson and Baylis in the previous chapter, 4.1.b. Also as}

Mackenzie and Walker note the intersubjective shaping of our identities can be understood as enabling if it supports a person’s capacities to exercise an autonomous self-narrative and can be understood as damaging if it constrains the range of identity constituting narratives available to her or interferes with the development or exercise of autonomy competence. See Mackenzie and Walker, “Neurotechnologies, Personal Identity, and the Ethics of Authenticity,” 387.

emotional responses, and judgments), and self-esteem or self-worth (thinking of oneself, one’s life and one’s undertakings as meaningful and worthwhile).497

For this reason, (weak) substantive approaches, argue for a set of normative competences which involve self-trust, self-esteem and self-worth. This approach does not stipulate the content a desire should have. This is important because a strong substantive approach would seem to deny the possibility of autonomous action as the demands placed on autonomous agency are just too high.

In summary, the relational approach I adopt is more than procedural, because it requires that the person values her own judgement and her capacity to act and choose in accordance with what she values. This requires that she must

(substantively) view her actions as her own in the sense that her actions reflect the value she places on her standing as an agent worthy of respect (that she has self- respect), that her projects are meaningful and worthwhile (that she has self- esteem) and that she has the competence to make good decisions based on her convictions and judgements (that she has self-trust). So, this involves not only a process of reflection on one’s choices and values, but a specific commitment to her self and what she values. Neither is the view I propose a strong substantive

account, it does not require any other substantive values, for example, valuing independence. Unlike strong substantive approaches it does not place too stringent commands on autonomy. However, on the view I propose a person cannot be indifferent to her own values; that is, she needs to, in some sense, endorse them to the extent that she thinks her values and judgements merit consideration, that her life and projects should count and that her judgement about actions or values matter.

In the following section I set out how this account is relevant to understanding cases of self-change consequent upon neural implants. Firstly, I draw together arguments made in previous chapters to set out the relationship between the exercise of autonomy and narrative self-understanding.